His "legitimate rape" remark gets the most press, but the GOP candidate has a trove of wacky thoughts and theories

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October 26, 2012 9:01PM (UTC)

Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin is known for some wacky antics. In the 1980s, Akin was arrested at least three times at antiabortion protests, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently reported.

And Akin also reportedly has ties to "one of the most radical antiabortion activists of the 1990s" and a right-wing militia in Missouri, according to Salon. Akin has ties with Tim Dreste, formerly of the 1st Missouri Volunteers militia, and who is also "one of the most infamous antiabortion activists in the state, known for threatening abortion doctors," according to the Salon report.

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But while Akin’s antics are bad, his rhetoric is even worse. The most infamous of Akin's comments came during the summer. During a televised interview, Akin responded to a question about abortion by saying, "if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

There's plenty more comments where that came from.

So as the Missouri Senate race heats up in the closing days, here are the 10 craziest things Akin has said.

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1. Federal Student Loans Like Cancer

At a GOP debate in April, Akin railed against the federal government helping students obtain an affordable education. The Columbia Tribune reports that at the debate, the candidates were asked about the federal student loan interest rate. "America has got the equivalent of the stage three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in," said Akin.

2. "Like a Dog"

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An Oct. 20 fundraising event with evangelical TV star Mike Huckabee sparked controversy after Akin compared McCaskill to a dog. ““She goes to Washington, D.C., it’s a little bit like one of those dogs, ‘fetch,’” said Akin, the website PoliticMO.com reported . “She goes to Washington, D.C., and get all of these taxes and red tape and bureaucracy and executive orders and agencies and brings all of this stuff and dumps it on us in Missouri.”

3. Leave the U.N.

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Speaking at the Greene County Pachyderm Club in May 2012, Akin lambasted the United Nations. “I got a simple solution to all of those problems, which is -- just get us out of the United Nations. It's corrupt, and we should reconstruct some other organization,” said the Missouri candidate.

4. Supporting a Personhood Amendment

Akin’s extreme anti-women and antiabortion views don’t just stop at blatantly offensive rhetoric. They’re also contained in the legislation he supports. During an April 2012 Republican debate, Akin said that he would “support a constitutional amendment” to enshrine his belief that “life does begin at conception,” the website PoliticMO.com reported in April. The Chicago Tribune says that would effectively define birth control as murder.

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5. The Morning After Pill Is Abortion

During a radio interview in August 2012 highlighted by Talking Points Memo, Akin spelled out his disdain for contraception. “As far as I'm concerned the morning-after pill is a form of abortion. I think we just shouldn't have abortion in this country,” Akin explained. He also said that he would agree with banning the morning after pill for everybody in the country.

6. Defense Bill "Legalizes Bestiality"

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Every year, the National Defense Authorization Act is passed in Congress to fund the Department of Defense. But this year, Akin saw something in there that didn’t even exist: bestiality. “The Senate version of the bill ... They also had the legalization of bestiality, which is a pretty weird thing. So, I'm on the House side of the negotiations on that. So, we got rid of the bestiality thing,” Akin said during a campaign stop in September, according to video posted by the website Progress Missouri.

7. Anti-Rape Law as a "Legal Weapon"

Akin’s extreme antiabortion views didn’t come out of nowhere, as his 1980s arrest record shows. In 1991, he questioned whether an anti-marital rape law could be used unfairly against men during divorce proceedings. Although Akin eventually supported the bill, he did say at the time that he was concerned that the bill could be used “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband.”

8. Have Cancer but No Health Insurance? You’re on Your Own

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At a debate in early 2012, Akin was asked about a 28-year-old person who could not afford insurance and chose not to have it as a result. His answer indicated he would just leave that person to suffer, as this YouTube video shows. “I think that what we have to realize is all of us make decisions in our lives and there are consequences to those decisions. If we try to separate the consequences from the decisions that we make eventually you end up with a system that is broken and will not work. I believe that the 28 year old that chose not to have insurance is going to have to pay a big chunk of his medical bills.”

9. Communists in the Government

That’s what Akin believes. At a 2011 Tea Party event, Akin minced no words. “The bottom line is you got a conservative House, you got a bunch of socialists in the Senate, and you got a commie president. That's where we are. Until we change that, we're not going to be able to deal with what we got.”

10. Health Insurance for Children is Socialism

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The State Children’s Insurance Program (SCHIP) is an important tool to help children obtain health insurance. But Akin believes it’s a “calamity.” Speaking on the floor of the House in 2007 when the bill to renew SCHIP came up, he said: “We can all think of instances where some great calamity was about to happen and yet we have to stand by powerless to help. Like the pilot of the Titanic, he sees the glacier emerging through the mist, he spins the wheel too late. That is the case this morning. Not with a steamship, but with SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Plan,” Akin said, according to CSPAN video.. He went on to say that “socialized medicine is not the way to go.”

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is a staff reporter at Mondoweiss and the World editor at AlterNet. His work has also appeared in The Daily Beast, the Electronic Intifada, Extra! and Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.